


Our Understanding Did Oft Negate Tainted Knowledge or, JOHN'S POV

by Blacktablet (Ishamaeli)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Experimental, M/M, POV Second Person, Romance, Spoilers, Typography, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:00:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishamaeli/pseuds/Blacktablet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John forgets how to breathe, Moriarty's web tightens around them, and there are some miracles worth waiting for. A somewhat-like-a-play in three acts wherein John is still not quite alright.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Our Understanding Did Oft Negate Tainted Knowledge or, JOHN'S POV

Our Understanding Did Oft Negate Tainted Knowledge1

or,

**JOHN'S POV**

 

~*~

 

ACT I, SCENE 1

INT. 221B BAKER STREET, SITTING ROOM - EVENING

 

It's important to breathe.

  
b               r               e               a               t                h                e

 

Don't look.

Don't _ever_ look.

Not even a  _peek_ \--

You looked.

paletautmuscle  
                                                 valleysofshadow  
                                                                                             slightdustingofhair  
                                                                                                                                               _male_

 

You never look.

You're not like that.

Really.

You _never_ look.

Except... You couldn't help it, could you?

Couldn't help thinking--

_God_ , you'd say.  _Jesus, Sherlock, that feels--_

You are such a blasphemer.

Didn't your mother teach you better?

 

"John?"

 

Shit.

Remember?

You never stopped looking.

You finish bandaging his side - a knife wound, too deep to be superficial, too shallow to merit a visit to the hospital - and sigh.

 

"One of these days,  
you're going to get  
yourself killed."

 

Silence.

You hate his silences because when he's talking, at least some part of him is available to you.

When you two fight, you fight with silences.

 

                           You don't say, Why can't you buy the milk for once? and he doesn't reply, I've got you to do that.

                           He doesn't say, What do you mean you can't see it, are you a complete idiot? and you don't reply, I'm starting to think I am.

 

You don't know which would be worse; to hear all that he has to say, or to say everything that you want to say.

You wish you had the opportunity to find out.

...

The bandage moves under your hand.

Shit, shit,  _shit_.

You never stopped touching, either.

 

"John."

 

The warmth of his skin lingers at your fingertips.

 

"Sorry."

 

Your throat burns with embarrasment and--

  
              likelustlove

_not  
                                                               like  
                                                                            that_

 

("Johnny, your sister is...  
going through a phase.  
She'll grow out of it.")

 

Your mother taught you well.

Breathe.

In and out.

You've seen the occasional hickey, smelled a strange aftershave on him a number of times.

A small number.

...

To you, anything more than  _not once_ is too much.

  


"Would it be easier  
if I made myself  
scarce more often?"

 

It's not that he isn't into that sort of thing.

 

"I don't know  
what you're  
talking about."

 

It's that he isn't into  _you_.

  


But it doesn't matter, because you're not like that.

...

If there was even  _one sign_ \--

  


"Never mind, then."

 

Your hope is futile, but it is the only thing you have so you cling to it like you cling to the memory of that night--

 

(“That thing you did, that

you offered to do...

That was good.”)

 

“Tea?”

 

 

ACT I, SCENE 2

INT. 221B BAKER STREET, JOHN'S BEDROOM - NIGHT

 

You stare at the ceiling.

In the other bedroom, Sherlock stares at the other ceiling; you can feel his eyes boring into the back of your skull.

Your thoughts drip out like water.

the.pool.the.pool.the.pool.the.pool.thepoolthepoolthe--

You try to breathe.

_He_ is out there somewhere, covered between the shadows of his past and  _your_ present that seems to shift according to his will. There are clues that turn out to be nothing, and nothing that turns out to be clues, and Sherlock

  
                                                                    dances  
                                               like  
                         a  
                                                      puppet,

 

darting after every single one only to return home empty-handed and frustrated.

You know it is a waste of energy. You know this because you understand human emotion and no matter Moriarty's origins, whether he crawled out of

                                                   a wardrobe  
                                                   with            c              r  
                                                                                               e  
                                                                                                         a  
                                                                                                 k  
                                                                                                           y

                                                                                                                           hinges, or  
                                                    the darkness  
                                                    outside  
                                                    the cave                     of  
                                                    the first man,

he is still human.

He wants to _play_ , and sooner or later, he will tire of playing alone.

Sherlock won't find him until he wants to be found, though. In the meanwhile, he spends day after day following the trail of bread crumbs that do not make sense while you periodically leave cups of tea and biscuits where they might find their way into his mouth.

You think he is beautiful when he--

No.

Keep breathing. Do NOT think about

                              the warmth of his skin under your hands  
                              the curve of his Cupid's bow  
                              the tall frame pressed to your side underwater  
  
                              how he glows when he finds the answer  
                              how he has all the answers  
                              how you keep missing the obvious one

 

("I will burn  
the heart  
out of you.")

 

Downstairs, you can hear him get up and go back to his map that is made of scraps of paper newspaper articles

                                                                 red string                                  woollen  
                                                                 coloured pins                          numerous  
                                                                        post-it notes              covered in  
                                                                                       scrawled notes.

It is a trail. You don't know where it leads.

                  the ends of the earth  
                  the farthest planet  
                  death

All the places you would follow him - but not war because _you're already_ _there_ , and the memory of the sun constricts your throat.

Downstairs, something shatters but you're too far away to hear it.

 

 

ACT I, SCENE 3

EXT. A BATTLE FIELD IN AFGHANISTAN - DAY

 

("Jesus Christ, Watson, keep  
breathing! John, can you hear  
me? We're almost back to the  
camp, you just steady on and  
Ferguson will patch you right  
up. But you've got to

_b r e a t h e_

if you want to live!")

 

You're not sure if you ever do start breathing again after you are shot. Everything crumbles into the flare of pain in your shoulder until there is only one thing left in the whole world--

 

(“Please, God, let me live.”)

 

\--until there is a man.

 

On Afghan sand, you forget how to inhale-exhale-gasp-sigh-moan, and you're not sure it will ever come back to you.

There is nothing until you wake up in the hospital, and there is nothing afterwards until you run into Stamford--

 

(“How's your blog going?”)

 

\--until there is a man.

 

 

ACT II, SCENE 1

EXT. ST. BART'S HOSPITAL – DAY

 

Two dead men stand on a roof.

If this is a joke, you don't know the punchline.

Your eyes are trained on him,

 

                                                                                                                 a  
                                                                                                                tall  
                                                                                                               dark  
                                                                                            shape like a great raven on the  
                                                                                                   edge of the roof, and  
                                                                                                      you feel how your  
                                                                                                            face goes  
                                                                                                               numb  
                                                                                                           with shock  
                                                                                                            when the  
                                                                                                               raven

                                                                                                                                                                                    takes

 

 

                                                                                                                                      flight

 

(“Goodbye, John.”)

 

like a hero of ancient times

with Hephaestos weeping on the ground.

 

 

ACT II, SCENE 2

INT. AN EMPTY HOUSE IN LONDON - DAY

 

 

( _In a nearby building, Sebastian Moran packs his rifle and leaves. He doesn't look back - there is nothing to look back for - damn Jim – but there are still things to be done, and with every item crossed off his list he salutes the most terrifying and exciting man he has ever known._ )

 

 

 

  


ACT III, SCENE 1

EXT. NEW SCOTLAND YARD - EARLY MORNING

It doesn't matter that you never re-learnt how to breathe because it would have been a wasted effort. In a way, the silence feels like one of your fights; you rage, and beg, and plead, and he refuses to respond.

                                                                                                                                                (Dead men tell no tales.)

If only you could _stay_ angry at him.  
If only someone else had believed in him.

 

(“It's crazy, this  
Believe In Sherlock Holmes  
movement, they're  
everywhere. _Why?_ ”)

 

                                and belief is like a spider's web  
                                thin, invisible, unnoticed _  
strong_

 

Much like you are, these days.

You're not so sure about that last part, though. You feel like the ghost of a man who was brought alive only to die again. You were never the one who solved problems, and this is a problem that you can't solve by punching it, so you're at a loss.

 

“You alright, John?”

 

It took you almost a year to forgive Lestrade.

 

“Fine. Just fine.”

 

You don't know it yet, but it will take you much less than that to forgive _him_ after you get your miracle. You know that you are lucky.

Though it still feels like a punch to the gut to see him in your kitchen.

 

(A jumpstart, if you will.)

 

 

ACT III, SCENE 2

INT. 221B BAKER STREET, SHERLOCK'S BEDROOM - EARLY MORNING

 

The bedsheets smell of him.

The room is his.

You've got the best of both worlds, though.

 

You are in the room that is his,  
bundled up under the bedsheets  
that smell of him

listening to his heartbeat.

  
               _thu-thump  
                              thu-thump  
                                             thu-thump  
                                                            thu-thump  
                                                                           thu-thump  
                                                                                          thu-thump_

 

Nothing to stop it now.

 

"Go back to sleep, John.  
It's too early."

 

It's not. After three years, it can never be too early.

 

You           turn  
                                  on  
                          your  
              side

and you set out to discover what he smells like, so early in the morning even the sun isn't up yet, and whether the scent changes after you've had your mouth on every inch of him.

 

 

ACT III, SCENE 3

EXT. SOMEWHERE OUTSIDE OF LONDON - DAY

 

You draw a deep breath of fresh air.

Another.

And another.

Sherlock's eyes are on you, watchful.

You wonder why you didn't notice anything earlier, and say as much.

For once, he doesn't launch into an explanation of how he deduced your deepest, darkest secrets from the way you folded your shirts while he was gone, but gently takes your hand instead.

You smile, and on top of a hill, you

 

 

 

 

_breathe_

 

 

 

 

 

END.

1 _The Eastern Threat_ , George Powell (1936)

**Author's Note:**

> Two years of glaring at this thing, and it is finally done. I feel that my fascination with experimental typography is showing, and I _know_ that the way this is formatted is not like any way to format a play known to man -- but it looks pretty. That is my only excuse.
> 
> Thank you for your time.


End file.
